Time for the government to get involved… if cruises ships oversell and boot passengers, fine them $100,000 per inconvenienced passenger. They must pay for first class airfare back home for each booted passenger and any hotel stays required due to their late notice of their overbooked status. Optionally, they could pay for an all-inclusive, cruise-length hotel stay so the customer still gets a vacation. They’re making money hand over fist with their nickel and diming and exorbitant rates. If they have a few last minute cancellations, they’re keeping the money from passengers who didn’t buy insurance, so they’re not hurting. Greedy, gouging businesses should be put on notice that they’ll pay the price for unethical practices like this.
Cruise lines should not be able to book more cabins than the ship has. I understand the concept of the gty, but allowing people to arrive at the terminal to be told they have no cruise--totally wrong. It might work for lines that have multiple ships departing for the same port, but by the time we would factor in air and hotel, we'd lose money despite the offers. I can go along with asking for volunteers in advance. I can be date flexible but changing my flights could still be hundreds. We need an accessible cabin. We had one instance where the cruise line had booked a corporate group and "needed" our balcony cabin. We were offered a 100% refund plus doing the sailing in an inside cabin. I won't say my cruise partner was totally happy, but my checkbook certainly was and we did some excursions that I may not have paid for otherwise.
If I took vacation time, traveled to Florida from NY and found out they denied me boarding, I am not sure how I would get all that money back even with a free cruise. I would turn me off of the cruise line forever. This is why we never use the GTY option.
Why is overbooking a cruise legal? They know exactly what they are doing - playing with customer's vacations by rolling the dice in an overbook gamble. They hope a certain percentage will cancel and when this doesn't happen the games begin. Given that they are paid in full for all cancelled cabins this is a money grab plain and simple. Some people only get a fixed vacation and cancelling their vacation is more than a small inconvenience. Pay the extra money and get an assigned cabin up front to avoid this Russian Roulette.
@@Cenlalowell Guaranteed Cabins are a gimmick in my mind. There are just some cabins and areas on a ship no one really wants to be in. To avoid people not booking because the available room is less than ideal the lines created a Guaranteed category and lowered the price. This way everyone "thinks" they will get a good cabin and not the problematic ones. The strategy sells a dream, not a reality - and it seems to work. But calling it Guaranteed actually means nothing in terms of getting bounced. Once they sell all available cabins the overbook should be sold as "Standby" or "On Call" period.
I think calling these lower fares a “guaranteed” cabin is deceptive. The only guarantee is the cabin type “IF” you get a cabin. They should be honest and call it the “roll the dice” fare.
Honestly you initially had me scared for my upcoming cruises that are guarantee cabins but they are during off peak times in October and November but I am keeping my fingers crossed.
That’s the goal of videos like this 😂to get you to click and watch. We’ve been booking at capacity guaranteed cabins for years and never had an issue. Has it ever happened? Yes, but it’s EXTREMELY rare
One issue is air. If you do not book air through cruise line you don’t get anything back. We had a cruise cancelled by the cruise line and the only thing offered was a full refund of the cost of the cruise. We did have travel insurance but it did not cover all the air. The insurance company did not care if the cruise line cancelled on us. We blame some of this on our TA as we requested cancel for any reason. Also we did not carefully read the policy. Booking air through the cruise line usually means poorer connections and sometimes no business class. Such is travel.
I have a guaranteed cabin because I didn’t know what it meant. My cruise line will assign my cabin at least 5 days in advance. I won’t leave without a cabin. It’s regent Seven Seas so I don’t think I’ll have a problem, but it’s worrisome.
Demand for cruising has skyrocketed. Previously ships were not sailing full, people would wait until the last minute to book to hope to see a price drop or book a "guaranteed" cabin hoping to get an upgrade. Not any more. Cruises are selling out and sailing over capacity (our last one in May sold out over 3 months in advance and was at 120% capacity and this was an older Carnival ship) and fewer and fewer people are canceling at the last minute. Make SURE you book your cruise reservation with a cabin# attached to it.
@@stevengolden9009 I only cruise on the older, smaller ships now. I would never go near those hideous behemoths with 6000 passengers, and half of those kids. That's no vacation to me!!!
Of they pull this crap on us on our holloween cruise on utopia i will be so pissed our room was a guarantee room because we got a casino offer and it was all they had was a gty cabin avail
Not exactly correct calling something guaranteed, if that isn't actually the case 🤔 I have zero respect for cruise lines or airlines who overbook their ships/planes
ah yes the other definition of the word "guaranteed"..... but having said that we always go for a specified cabin as we like to choose a location to avoid any "lou-lou" problem cabins which can be the ones left for "upgrades" etc etc.
A couple of things here. First of all, it depends on the cruise. Our next cruise is THROUGH the P Canal. Good luck getting me to change. Also, my wife still works, so it's not an easy manner of just having her give back here vacation time - especially since we are flying from the east coast to San Diego a day early. I have elite status on a specific airline so I don't book through the cruise line. So until my wife retires, and without enough advance notice - GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!
